Prayer
Summary: Cas's prayer at the beginning of Season 11 was heard throughout Heaven and beyond. Spoilers for the beginning of the season.
Cas watched the policemen and the searchers around the farm house. He was too weak to go very far very fast, but he knew he had to leave the area. If he stayed, they might find him. If they found him...
He'd avoided hurting the boy who'd discovered him earlier, but it had been terrifyingly close. And the memory of what he had done to the dog...what he had done to Crowley, though he regretted that less...God help him.
God was silent. But Heaven...he turned his eyes skyward.
The last time he'd prayed, it had led both Muriel and Malachai to him. The price had been his torture, followed by the death of an innocent, and his own descent into the blood-soaked madness of the angel faction war.
The time before that, he'd sat in a silent church, praying to a God he was convinced was no longer listening to any of his children. He'd listened to a woman lecture him about faith, and wished for the comfort of her ignorance.
The time before that, he'd poured out his soul in a winter park, heart-sick and tortured by the betrayal he saw no way to avoid committing, and been greeted with silence. Silence and nothingness, the same response he'd received every other time he reached out to his absent Father. His Father who had told him that he would do nothing, nothing to save His children whom he'd professed to love.
Spell energy burned and frothed in his head again, urging violence, the siren call of madness. He'd felt the sensation once before, when the souls of Purgatory, the Leviathans, had taken him.
The memory of what he had done then, of the atrocities he had committed and the blood he had spilled...
Anything was better than that. Oblivion, torture, imprisonment...anything.
He fell to his knees, trembling in emotional and physical agony, his mind in such turmoil he could barely form words. But form them he did.
'Brothers...sisters...I know I have no right to ask you for anything. But these are desperate times, and ask I must. I...confess my transgressions, and I will accept whatever punishment you choose to give me. Only, please, help me...save me from doing worse.'
He could not bear another slaughter laid to his name. Another waking from madness to find innocent blood on his hands.
Better his death. Better to be imprisoned in Heaven's jail for eternity. Better to submit himself to punishment. He bowed his head, then came to his feet and moved further into the woods, away from the humans who were searching for a madman. Away from the innocents who might be destroyed by his touch.
He had no doubt his brothers and sisters would find him. He only hoped they would choose to answer, and soon. Before the madness claimed him.
***P***
It was a prayer that rang throughout Heaven. A prayer by a being that all of Heaven knew.
Castiel was praying, and the desperation in his voice was clear.
Some shook their heads, that an angel who had once been a leader of Heaven had fallen so low. They pitied him, as much as they understood the emotion, and regretted the loss of such a brilliant commander to human corruption.
Some remembered a slaughter of years ago, and a year spent in exile on Earth, and were angry. Angry at his presumption, to ask things of Heaven after all he had destroyed, the ways he had flouted their laws. Then his confession echoed the halls, his surrender, and anger turned to grim intent. They planned, and plotted what 'penance' they would inflict when found him.
One angel in Heaven, Heaven's leader, heard the voice of a dear friend, and her heart ached with sorrow at his desperation. At his pain. But she had duties, responsibilities to Heaven, and she could not abandon them, not even for him. She wept for Castiel's suffering, and for the vengeance Heaven might visit upon him.
***P***
Far away, a Father who had absented himself long ago listened to his son pray. A special son, whom he had watched over the past few years with love, though he had never told the young angel so. Castiel had needed room to grow, to learn.
He listened to the seraph's anguish, and his heart broke.
He listened to Castiel beg for help, for salvation, and his heart lifted with pride. This had been one of the last lessons, to learn to reach out for help, to reach for mercy. He could wish that Castiel had reached for Him, but He had told the young angel years ago that He would not come, so He could not fault him for reaching out to others. That he sought help was enough. He had learned to reach beyond himself, to have faith.
He heard Castiel's surrender, and He wept. He knew the cost that would come. The price. But surrender too had been among the last of Castiel's lessons to be learned. Surrender, sacrifice, salvation. The final steps in his journey. And so He wept, and let the price be paid, even as His hands moved the strings of fate to ensure that it would not be the end. And though He knew that Castiel would not hear, He sent an answer, whispered on the winds of the stars.
Endure my beloved son, this last trial by fire. Endure, and when it is done...it will be the hands of those who love you that lift you from the flames. Their arms that hold you. And My hands that heal you.
Endure, my beloved son, and I will give you that which you most desire. Your freedom. Your beloved friends. And that which you sought once tirelessly.
Endure, my beloved son, and when next you call, whether to Heaven or otherwise, it will be Me that comes to you.
Author's Note: Cas's prayer was so heartbreaking, especially with how it was answered...this just popped into my head. Plus, I think Sam is right, that God actually is listening and getting involved.